Source: Paras Griffin / Getty
Season 2 of
Swizz Beatz and Timbaland’s brainchild,
Verzuz, kicked off with a bang. The battle between longtime rivals Jeezy and Gucci Mane was the talk of the internet for nearly two weeks following its announcement, and it didn’t disappoint.
Instagram Live and Apple Music was the place to be last Thursday night (Nov.19) as 1.8 million people headed to Atlanta’s
premier strip club, Magic City, to witness the showdown between Jeezy and Gucci Mane. Just like when things were normal, both artists had the millions around watching waiting due to them being late, totally missing the proposed 8 PM starting time.
Once they arrived, each artist stood in front of the thrones set on the stage. Jeezy kept his entourage pretty light while Gucci had a gang of cheerleaders to hype him up. It turns out he was going to need them the entire night, honestly. Before the battle of the trap hits commenced, Stacy Abrams appeared in a video message urging Georgians to get out there once again and vote in the upcoming runoff election for Georgia’s two senate seats.
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Once the politics were out of the way, it was time for the main event. Both artists came locked in loaded with their hits. Gucci Mane, who seemed on edge the entire event, never sat in his throne while performing tracks like “Lemonade,” “Yellow”, “I Might Be,” “I Get The Bag,” and “Wasted.” Jeezy kept things very cool as he strategically peppered his nemesis of 15 years with hit after hit like “Put On,” “Soul Survivor,” ‘Standing Ovation,” to name a few.
Eventually, Gucci’s patience wore thin becuase Jeezy was playing “old shit,” and he performed “Truth” which isn’t technically a Jeezy diss record. Still, it does speak on the death of
The Recession crafter’s friend rapper Henry Lee Clark III aka Pookie Loc at the hands of Gucci Mane. Loc was shot to death while attempting to rob LaFlare and four other men. Gucci has maintained his innocence that it was an act of self-defense, and prosecutors would eventually drop all charges against him.
Jeezy didn’t react too much to Gucci’s constant jabs at his clothing and choice of songs but was clearly not too thrilled to hear the song “Truth” and responded:
“See, when I called you and extended this invite, my nigga, I did it as a real man. It’s been 20 Muthafuckin’ years… you still talking the same shit. The shit we came from in the street, we been through it, dawg. Twenty years and when I said I wanted to do this for the culture, that’s what I wanted to do. I brought you here to show you the world care about what the fuck we got going on because we are the culture. Me and you, where we came from, what we been through, nigga, us.”
https://twitter.com/HipHopDX/status/1329624535075852290?s=20
The battle would become even tenser than it was initially was with fellow Atlanta rapper, T.I., asking in the chat if Swizz and Timbaland really thought this through in the comment section of the Instagram Live.
BUT, cooler heads did prevail, and we saw something that we thought would never happen again. The rapper seemingly ended their decades-long beef by performing the 2005 hit single “Icy,” the song that started their feud becuase they couldn’t agree on the rights. It was a monumental moment.
The event ended with the two rappers exchanging pleasantries before walking off the stage and heading to their after-party (it’s still pandemic going on) at Compound. As you can imagine, there were plenty of reactions to the historic night, you can peep them all in the gallery below, and if you were one of those individuals at Compound, you really should get tested for COVID-19.
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Photo: Paras Griffin / Getty
